Things I need to own

A replica time map from the Terry Gilliam classic Time Bandits. Soon I'll be able to traverse time, hang with dwarves, kidnap children, interact with Sean Connery over a number of different periods, confront Evil, and get chewed out by the Supreme Being for stealing from Him.

No, kill grandma

From Dick Armey's Freedom Works, the same conglomeration that brought you the Tea Parties, the Tea Baggers, and other such expressions of "grassroots protests", comes the latest inept salvo in the war against health care: Don't Kill Grandma.com. Their message? Don't kill grandma.....dot com. No, they would instead prefer to kill the health reform bill, which we all know will result in the violent murder of everyone's elderly relatives.

Ok, first off, what is with every right wing group using Monty Python clips now? First Chris Christie did it, now Freedom Works. What is it about left wing absurdist satire that so appeals to the right wing "grassroots" organizer? What I'm saying is: stop tainting the things I like or it's going to get violent in here.

Secondly: how come they're ignoring the wishes of the elderly who want the government to violently and brutally put them down without any remorse, pity, or mercy? What about those of us who would like to see grandma murdered in exchange for cheaper health care? As in every debate, we're cruelly pushed to the sidelines by the decency police.

Sadly, we here at TB Industries lack the means to start up our own fake grassroots protests and are much, much too lazy to try and start a real one. But for any left wing cranks with money (George Soros?) or billionaires with an abiding love for killing the elderly (George Soros?), we'd just like to point out that Kill Grandma.com , Off Gramps For the Greater Good.com, This Is the Way They'd Want to Die.com are all available, as well as their .org and .net equivalents. All I'm saying is post up a couple Python clips, add in a few testimonials of the elderly who want to be shotgunned by Barack Hussein Obama, stage a completely corporate backed protest mach on Washington, and we can finally swing this debate back to where we want it: murdering grandmothers. It's for the greater good.

I fart in New Jersey's general direction

With a disinterested populace set to go out tomorrow and vote in record lows, our attention moves to the New Jersey Governors race between Jon Corzine and Chris Christie, which has been accused of degrading the human spirit. First it was just a typical race between two deeply unlikable men, squabbling for political power. But soon things got classy as, in the face of flagging poll numbers, the incumbent Corzine was all like "Yo momma ain't the fat one, you the fat one, fatty" and then Christie was all like "Call me fat again, bitch. Call me fat again, you bald bitch" and a Governor's race in America was contested on a platform of fat jokes and subsidies for more Kevin Smith Jersey movies.

But now, as voters get ready to trudge to the polls, look at both names, sigh mournfully, and ask an election worker if they actually have to pick one of them, comes something that truly offends everyone: Chris Christie ripped off a Monty Python sketch for one of his political ads. That son of a bitch!

Chris Christie, the Republican candidate for Governor of New Jersey in Tuesday's knife-edge gubernatorial election, has been called out as a copyright thief.
...
The official campaign advert -- titled "Deja Vu" -- attacks incumbent New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine by using scenes from a famous skit on the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" TV show that features Michael Palin. The ad is on Christie's official YouTube campaign site, and has already aired on national TV.

But neither Christie -- a lawyer for 22 years -- nor anyone in his campaign bothered to seek any permission for using the copyrighted material in his election spot.

Now this is something to get outraged about and decide an election over: ripping off the Deja Vu sketch. He doesn't even do it in a good way either, he just runs the beginning of the sketch with lame text attacks about Corzine underneath. It looks like it was put together in a high school A/V class. But it has done one positive thing: it has allowed Monty Python members Michael Palin and Terry Jones to inject themselves into the race, threaten lawsuits, and take easy potshots at Christie's former status as a Karl Rove recommended, George Bush appointed US attorney (something that should have had him disqualified from the race almost immediately).

"I'm surprised that a former U.S. Attorney isn't aware of his copyright infringement when he uses our material without permission. He's clearly made a terrible mistake. It was the endorsement of Sarah Palin he was after -- not that of Michael Palin."
...
"It is totally outrageous that a former US Attorney knows so little about the law that he thinks he can rip off people. On the other hand -- another of Bush's legal appointees was Alberto Gonzales and he didn't seem to know much about the law either...," Jones said.

So to any of our readers who are living in Jersey, don't vote for Chris Christie. Not because he's an awful candidate or because you think Jon Corzine resembles a human, no, because Christie has affronted the comedy Gods in an illegal and, most importantly, unfunny way. Also, because he's a fatty fat fat fat. At least he didn't rip off the Argument Clinic Sketch.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 10.14

Russia: We’ll Nuke ‘Aggressors’ First
You know what really warms the cockles of your heart? Hearing that Russia is changing its military doctrine to allow for "preventative" nuclear strikes....even against countries without nuclear capabilities. Hope you weren't looking to sell your house in Chechnya or Georgia, because I think "potential nuclear holocaust site" tends to drop the value. As a bonus: this ought to really help get Iran in line on attempts to build nuclear weapons.

Latter day taint
An article on Glenn Beck's taint. No, not that taint, just the way the Mormon Beck traipses the bizarre fringes of Mormonism, espouses the thoughts and works of Mormon conspiracy theorist Cleon Skousen, and how all of this might damage the Mormon church. Yes, Glenn Beck is weirder and more of a fringe delusionist than you previously thought. This man has no ceiling on his insanity. We're living in a golden age.

Does Baseball Need Umpires?
The Wall Street Journal looks into the history of blown calls in baseball, the Pitch-f/x zone evaluation system, and whether or not a T-1000 should replace the fat guy hunched over the catcher with a wide strike zone. Sure the system is 100% accurate, but do we really want the front lines of the robopocalyse to be at America's national pastime? All I want to know is if they can create a cyborg that can stop the Pirates from losing ninety+ games a year.

Cleverness is no more. This is a dumb Britain
TV's Jeremy Clarkson takes a moment out from the celebration of Monty Python's 40th anniversary to praise them and to lament how the base foundation of their humor, often based around word usage, snooty novels, art, and philosophy, is incapable of being understood by a populace that wears stupidity as a badge of honor. Surprisingly he's talking about the UK and not America, but I'm sure if he watched CBS's lineup of alleged comedy programs he'd add us in.

Recruited by MI5: the name's Mussolini. Benito Mussolini
Mussolini got his start out in politics with a weekly wage of a 100 pounds from the MI5. In return for the cash he published pieces of support for Italy joining the allies in WWI and sent teams of young gentlemen to "debate" peace protesters with truncheons and clubs. I'm not much of a scholar on history, how'd all that work out?

Late night anniversarial video dump

This week contained the 40th Anniversary of Monty Python's Flying Circus going on the air. As such there are various retrospective articles, books, tributes, pictures, and movies and documentaries celebrating that fact. Instead of inadequately adding to the praise, I'll just post up a few of my favorite sketches and advise you to go buy the original series on DVD and watch it. And if you haven't ever gotten into Python or don't really 'get it', I'll kindly ask that you leave here and not come back until you have some goddamn taste.

Bush 1 - Fancy cheese 0

Of all the litany of bad things we expected Bush to do before leaving office (like pardoning Libby, making it legal for corporations to steal the bone marrow of your children, or mandatory daily ape attacks) I don't think too many people had money on "fuck with the fancy cheese industry". But then again, we don't think outside the box like George Bush does and apparently he hadn't gotten in his quota of French mocking activities for his second term.

This seems an unlikely spot to fight a trade war. The United States, it turns out, has declared war on Roquefort cheese.

In its final days, the Bush administration imposed a 300 percent duty on Roquefort, in effect closing off the U.S. market. Americans, it declared, will no longer get to taste the creamy concoction that, in its authentic, most glorious form, comes with an odor of wet sheep and veins of blue mold that go perfectly with rye bread and coarse red wine.

The measure, announced Jan. 13 by U.S. Trade Representative Susan C. Schwab as she headed out the door, was designed as retaliation for a European Union ban on imports of U.S. beef containing hormones.

Besides, they said, Roquefort is only one of dozens of European luxury products that were attacked with high tariffs. The list includes, among other things, French truffles, Irish oatmeal, Italian sparkling water and "fatty livers of ducks and geese".

Now you know the horrible truth as to why you can't enjoy the traditional American breakfast of Irish oatmeal, foie gras, and Roquefort. Nice to see that the world sets it's import tariff policies around dissing a famed national food from another country because they got snooty about one of yours. Perhaps we need another round of Freedom Frying and Liberty Cabbagery to teach them the error of their ways. Equally funny is the hopes of the French that Obama will devote some time to righting this cheese diss. I'm sure it's #3 on his list, right after "1.unfuck economy 2.unfuck those wars". Maybe #4.

Also, this gives me a chance to post this:

Pretend it's a metaphor for our trade policy.